Prayer policy Lodi's next hurdle

LODI - Now that the Lodi City Council has endorsed holding uncensored invocations at its regular meetings, most certainly there will be more prayers to Jesus.

Daniel Thigpen

LODI - Now that the Lodi City Council has endorsed holding uncensored invocations at its regular meetings, most certainly there will be more prayers to Jesus.

What about Satan?

"I would like to bring my satanic bible and offer a few satanic prayers," Aaron Plunk wrote City Hall in an e-mail Thursday. "I expect you will not exclude me, because you said you welcome all faiths. ... I just want to read a few satanic prayers peacefully, and show people other avenues to go down instead of Jesus, and show how satan (sic) inspires me."

It remains to be seen if Satanists could join Christians, Muslims and other faiths at the dais. It depends on how the city's new policy is written.

And that is the challenge for City Attorney Steve Schwabauer, who must draft a policy broad enough to accommodate a variety of faiths that also could be defended in court.

With the council's Wednesday vote to abandon a policy that the pre-meeting prayers be nonsectarian, the odds of the issue landing in court have increased.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Wisconsin-based group that challenged Lodi over its prayers in May, will wait to take action until it sees a written policy and monitors future invocations, co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said.

In addition to Lodi, the organization also has challenged the prayers in Turlock, Tracy and Tehachapi.

"We're going to evaluate which (case) looks like the best one for litigation," Gaylor said. "So it's not like we're going to rush to court tomorrow."

City Council members in Lodi believe the policy direction they offered will stand up to a lawsuit. Aside from not restricting the content of the prayers, a new invocation policy must also follow certain guidelines, according to Mayor Larry Hansen's late-night motion.

Those include:

» Inviting all varieties of faiths in Lodi.

» Inviting leaders of religious faiths that live in Lodi but must worship out of town.

» Opening up invocations to non-religious groups to give a "call for civic responsibility."

» Adding a disclaimer to the agenda that the invocation is not an endorsement of any religion and prohibiting invocations that seek to convert or demean other religions.

» Holding invocations before meeting is called to order.

The guidelines are similar to a policy proposed by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian group that offered to defend Lodi in a legal challenge.

Even if the city is sued, City Councilwoman Susan Hitchcock said she thinks the public would support a potentially costly court battle to defend the invocation policy.

"It's an important enough issue to the people of Lodi that they would prefer us to take a stand," she said.